John Machado came to Dallas and showed everyone how to get out of the lock down by using your own heel to hold their's in place and then escaping your leg. Its hard to explain with words but it's really easy to do, simple to learn, and it works, at least for me, 99% of the time.

I wouldn't base my game around something it takes 15 minutes to learn how to beat.

When I was at my first BJJ class, my teacher showed everyone how to get out of the closed guard by using your hips and arms. It's hard to explain but easy to do, simple to learn, and works about 75% of the time. I wouldn't base MY game on something that takes 45 mins to learn how to beat.

haha. I remember that one. In fact, I have it recorded on an old vhs tape. (along with the every other episode of pokemon...in spanish.)

I remember trying the lockdown immediately after I read Bravo's book, and truth be told, I had some sucess with it. Not sweeping, but rather stalling. I got pretty good at it, and it got to the point where I could hold half-guard forever, against people of around my own skill level.

Then I realized all I was getting out of it was being smashed under the weight of a grown man.

Perhaps this anecdote is not as helpful as everyone else's posts, but I think it makes a point for not mimicking other people's moves. Copy and steal, yes. But mimicking won't get you anywhere. It's like jumping straight to stylization, instead of focusing on the fundamentals that allow stylization to exist in the first place.

haha. I remember that one. In fact, I have it recorded on an old vhs tape. (along with the every other episode of pokemon...in spanish.)
I remember trying the lockdown immediately after I read Bravo's book, and truth be told, I had some sucess with it. Not sweeping, but rather stalling. I got pretty good at it, and it got to the point where I could hold half-guard forever, against people of around my own skill level.

Then I realized all I was getting out of it was being smashed under the weight of a grown man.

Perhaps this anecdote is not as helpful as everyone else's posts, but I think it makes a point for not mimicking other people's moves. Copy and steal, yes. But mimicking won't get you anywhere. It's like jumping straight to stylization, instead of focusing on the fundamentals that allow stylization to exist in the first place.

/tl;dr

I think this might be the problem with the lockdown, everyone starts grappling and, after they learn the names for all the positions and actually start to become able to hold their own against all the higher belts in those positions, though at a lower level hold your own generally means either not getting submitted OR keeping them there till the time runs out. The problem is that as new guys no-one can hold half guard and even after a bit of time you find you can hold full guard allright, you can defend subs and even escape to the knees from under side and you can bridge yourself over into their guard from mount, but from half guard you can't do ****.

Then you try the lockdown and you can suddenly hold the guys that where breezing past your half guard for much longer, even until the time runs out, then you equate this with massive success and it's not until x months later when your actually doing something useful from other positions but still only stalling in half guard that you realise that the lockdowns made your half guard worse and not better.